When fifteen years of age the youth followed his father to Ohio where he worked for a short time on the Miami Canal, removing at the close of the year, 1826, to undertake similar employment at Louisville. At this time, apparently, he first attracted the attention of members of the world of scholarship, for we find the renowned scientist, Professor Silliman of Yale, writing to thank him “for the liberal spirit which you manifest in encouraging a work designed to promote the public good”--the work in question being the _American Journal of Science_, of which Silliman was the founder and editor. Within a few months the boy made his first contribution to scholarship by sending to Silliman, for publication in the _American Journal of Science_, a comprehensive description of the canal around the Ohio Rapids. At this time he was only sixteen, and his opportunities for schooling had been exceedingly scant. Yet his habits of observation and his powers of reasoning and of expressing himself in clear and convincing English might well be coveted by the average college undergraduate of today. A convenient illustration of these powers is afforded by Lapham’s journal entry for October 24. 1827: A smoky day. Mr. Henry, the engineer [of the canal], is of the opinion that the smoke occasioning our Indian summer, as the smoky weather is called, does not originate in the burning prairies in the West, or in other extensive fires; but that it is from the decay of vegetation. (If it is possible for vegetables to be converted into smoke without combustion this will appear very probable!!!!) He relates an instance of a very smoky day at New Madrid being followed by an earthquake; this he supposed to be the smoke that had arisen through the ground. I told him that I supposed it was owing to a peculiar state of the atmosphere which was unfavorable to the decomposition of smoke; to this he made no reply.